1694: Names of Roman Planets (S.S.1) Aug 4, 2019

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All of the planets, except for Earth, in the solar system are named for Roman gods. The reasons for most of the names are fairly straightforward. Mercury, what appeared as the fastest planet, was named for the messenger god; Venus was named after the goddess of love—same as the Babylonians—because it is so bright; Mars, a red planet is from the god of war; and Jupiter, the biggest planet is from the king of the gods; Saturn was named for the god of agriculture because it was thought to be a sun. However, these were the only known planets in Roman times, and it was not always a done-deal that the rest of the planets would borrow the tradition. The rest of the planets will be discussed in the post tomorrow.

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